Play Ball!

NEW YORK — Major League Baseball owners and players scored a victory off the field for the first time in 30 years Friday, negotiating a down-to-the wire labor agreement without losing a single game of play.

Owners and players avoided what would have been their ninth work stoppage since 1972 and reached a new four-year contract that prevents baseball from folding teams until at least 2007. That comes as welcome news for the Florida Marlins, who have been a potential contraction candidate.

The agreement, expected to be ratified within the next week, also increases the revenue shared between large and small market teams as a way to help all teams compete, and slaps the largest payrolls with a tax as a method to slow salary growth.

The deal, which was finally completed just before noon Friday -- the day players intended to strike -- was the product of round-the-clock meetings which saw negotiators shuttling the two blocks back and forth between each others' offices in the wee hours in the rain.

Although they would not discuss the specifics of the agreement, Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig and Players Association Executive Director Donald Fehr hailed it as historic.

"I think a lot of people thought they'd never live long enough to see these two parties come together with a very meaningful deal and do it without one game of work stoppage," Selig said.

Both players and owners said they were pleased to be able to return baseball's focus to the field and the fans. Baseball has suffered eight work stoppages -- five players' strikes and three owners' lockouts -- the most recent of which was a devastating 232-day strike that wiped out the end of the 1994 season and led to the cancellation of the World Series.

"All streaks come to an end, and this was one that was overdue to come to an end," Fehr said.

The deal includes increasing player minimum salaries to $300,000 and testing for illegal steroids. And in a move that almost threatened the entire deal, the contract expiration date was moved from Oct. 31 to Dec. 19 -- which preserves most of the signing period for players under the contract, but still provides leeway for owners.

"I think it goes without saying we're all excited and happy that we got this done," said Braves pitcher and players representative Tom Glavine. "We don't have to go through the uncertainties of another work stoppage and what it does to the game and how it affects the fans of the game."

Players,who had initially opposed measures that would slow the growth of salaries, did agree to raising the percentage of local revenue that teams must share from 20 percent to 34 percent and slapping a tax on the game's highest payrolls -- both of which owners insisted had to be part of a new agreement.

Perhaps the most significant victory for the players was putting off contraction until after the agreement ends in 2006. Players filed a grievance, which will be withdrawn, against the plan after owners voted Nov. 6 to fold two teams, the Minnesota Twins and the Montreal Expos.

The Expos, owned by Major League Baseball, could be moved to the Washington, D.C., area. But a lawsuit filed by Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria's Canadian business partners, claiming that when Loria owned the Expos he and baseball executives worked to fold or move the team, seeks to preserve it in Montreal. Baseball executives refused to comment Friday on what will happen with the Expos.

Loria and Marlins President David Samson praised the agreement for including more revenue sharing and putting off contraction.

"There's joy in Mudville," Loria said before Friday night's Marlins game against the Pittsburgh Pirates at Pro Player Stadium. "It's a great thing for baseball, our fans, our players, everybody."

Loria said delaying contraction will help Marlins fans understand what he has been promising.

"It tells them what I said from day one that the team is here and it's not going away," Loria said. "Contraction is finally not on the table anymore. That stability element is important to everyone."

Under the revenue-sharing proposal, based on 2001 figures, about $230 million -- up from $169 million this year -- will be shared between the largest and smallest revenue teams in 2003. That figure would rise, reaching about $258 million in the final two years of the agreement.

The luxury tax, which is far more punitive than previously, will hit payrolls of $117 million next year, rising each year and reaching $136.5 million in 2006. Teams will be taxed 17.5 percent to 40 percent, depending on the year and how often they exceed the threshold.

But it is not yet clear how much small and middle market teams, which could be helped the most, will benefit from the new agreement and how dramatically it will change baseball's economics. There is no mechanism to ensure teams spend their additional revenue on payroll.